Infection

“What’s wrong with your eye?”
I didn’t know the man ahead of me in line, but he seemed friendly enough. He had turned around to strike up a conversation while we waited. We both had pet toys in our baskets which became our common ground. That is until he got a look at my eye. I was hoping that if anyone noticed they wouldn’t say anything. But sometimes folks just let it fly. 🤐
“It’s a stye,” I quietly responded, lowering my head so it was out of sight.
“I’ve never heard of a stye. What caused it?”
“I think it’s from allergies but I’m not really sure.”
“How do you get rid of it?”
“In the past when I’ve gotten one, it’s gone away on its own but this one has lasted a while.”
“Well, just pop that thing,” he laughed, “it looks like a zit.” Then he headed for the cashier.

As I drove home, I determined to find out just what a stye is – Stye (sty) – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic. So, it’s a clogged oil gland.
The stye in my eye had a large puss head. I tried the advice I read and put a warm washcloth over it for a while to see if it would give…but nothing happened. So, I went against that same advice and pricked it with a pin and then put the washcloth over it. When I removed the cloth, the stye had drained – success! 🙌
But within a few days, it began festering again – this time much faster. Eventually, I did a repeat of what I had done previously and the stye has since healed.

That experience got me thinking about how infections occur and spread – How Infections Spread | Infection Control | CDC. Sometimes they manifest into a disease.
We’re at the back end of Covid – WHO says Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency | CNN, but shouldn’t we stay aware?

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls
around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
– 1 Peter 5:8, ESV

Alcoholism runs in my family, so it’s one of the first diseases to come to mind for me. I’ve often wondered where things went wrong in my family – where did that infection start? Stuff must have a starting point, right?
In Scripture, the first mention of anyone being drunk was Noah King James Bible Search wine (thekingsbible.com). Noah apparently partied all by himself after the flood. But his escapade led to a curse on one of his grandsons which affected that grandson’s family line Why did Noah curse Ham / Canaan? | GotQuestions.org.
Wine was used for many different occasions and celebrations in ancient times, but scripture warns harshly against drunkenness. ⚠

“And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse,
that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace,
though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add
drunkenness to thirst: The LORD will not spare him, but then
the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against
that man, and all the curses that are written in this book
shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name
from under heaven.”
– Deut. 29:19-20, KJV

Scripture tells us that sin is an infection:

“We’re all sin-infected, sin-contaminated. Our best efforts are
grease-stained rags. We dry up like autumn leaves – sin-dried,
were blown off by the wind.”
– Isaiah 64:6, The Message

That infectious sin disease began in the most beautiful of locations – Eden. The germ that entered the garden was a satanic serpent. He found a susceptible person named Eve and she transmitted the sickness to the First Adam, the man responsible for his family. Now sin is in all of us.

“You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma
we’re in– first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either
sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in
everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance
was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses.
So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated
the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn’t sin
precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God
still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from
God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One
who will get us out of it.”
– Romans 5:12, The Message

The One who will get us out it – the cure – is the Second Adam – Jesus. What does it mean that Jesus is the second Adam? | GotQuestions.org.

Thank you, Jesus! 🙏

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice
 of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.“
– Hebrew 13:15